A Test Facility for the Experimental Investigation of Labyrinth Seal Flutter and Early-Stage Validation of Prediction Techniques

The ARIAS project involved the development of novel seal flutter prediction approaches and their full validation against data generated with a state-of-the-art test facility to improve understanding of this phenomenon. The unique test rig was designed and built to provide detailed insight into the flow and structural dynamic behavior of a seal test article under free and forced flutter and was demonstrated to successfully produce seal flutter under controlled conditions. Simple 1D modeling approaches and full 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of the test geometry were developed to design the rig’s test articles and to predict the free-flutter and forced-response behavior of both a two- and four-fin labyrinth seal. The rig produces high-quality validation data that could be used to successfully validate the developed models, significantly increasing the confidence in seal flutter predictions, and the comparative facets and drawbacks of these prediction approaches.